


falsettoland

by ghettoblasterz



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn, In Trousers - Fandom
Genre: Light Angst, No Smut, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Therapy, mendel is that bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 15:41:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19008808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghettoblasterz/pseuds/ghettoblasterz
Summary: (obc)ever since trina started dating mendel, marvin found it difficult to even look down at the man he once called his shrink. but he cant deny that mendel always knows the right questions to ask that make his head spin. he shows up to therapy anyways for the next few weeks, and one hell of an hour is it each time. especially today.





	falsettoland

**Author's Note:**

> I appreciate all the feedback I get on this shit aa!!!

Marvin supposed that the clock only ticked so loudly because he had perceived it to. Was it insanity? Sure. Maybe that was what was wrong with him from the get go.

"What's new, Marv?" Mendel had simply asked, really not a question worth crying over. He tapped the metal rim of his notebook as the words fell from emotionless lips, oblivious to the noise drowning him out within Marvin's own head. For a licensed psychiatrist, he never seemed to ask the right questions. At least to Marvin he didn't.

"What isn't?" Marvin replied, hoping that that was a proper answer to the question.

Tick tick tick tick

"Anything happen that's…specifically…?"

Tick tick tick

"Come again?" Marvin asked. He rubbed his forehead with the end of his sleeve in an effort to soak up the sudden perspiration there.

Maybe Mendel didn't know he acted so condescending so often, or maybe he did, but regardless he responded with a roll of his eyes. Continually his pencil smacked against the notebook, driving Marvin's lucid mind farther and farther away from the questions being propelled towards him, before he eventually gave it a rest. Mendel turned back down to the notebook. His eyes sat sullenly, bags beneath them even seeming to flutter with grief. Almost half an hour into the session already, and the page had remained nearly blank spare Marvin's name and the date.

"Do you know why you feel so...for lack of a better word, distraught, so often?" Mendel said. His voice choked out with forced seriousness.

Marvin replied, flat as a lake, "Well, first of all, I'm gay, so jot that down."

A dirty glance from the shrink, sitting almost folded in his office chair. Clearly, that was not the right answer.

"Yes, I know that--" he in fact did not jot that down, instead winding his foot around to crack his ankle and maintaining deadly eye contact-- "You've been seeing me for how many years now, Mr. Marvin?"

And Marvin knew that whenever he was Mr. Marvined that meant it was time to face the music. Reluctantly, he shied away, glancing to the very corner of the room to try and stop his shrink's accusatory glare. "You know I don't mean to be rude, Mendel. If I knew what was making me upset it would have been long dead by now."

"Well, you don't know that," Mendel said. He furrowed his eyebrows, putting pen to paper; finally, Marvin had said something of significance!

"I don't?"

"Sure. It could be anything that invokes aggression that you just can't pinpoint." He laughed. "It could be me! Fear comes in many forms, my friend."

Marvin met his eyes. In a turn of events, it seemed that now Mendel was the one silently taken aback by the rush of confidence from his usually meek and snappy patient. Between the both of them, neither were as ballsy as they tended to let on. "I'm not scared," Marvin replied.

"You are. I'm scared, too. We all are of something or another."

Uncomfortable silence. Marvin shifted in the sofa--black leather, typical. Why didn't he just focus on that instead?--assuming a figure four position and waiting for Mendel to make a mistake. Then he could strike. For now, it stood just a matter of waiting; a standoff of oddly disproportionate proportions. He hated answering Mendel's stupid questions almost as much as he hated the questions themselves.

"Bet you wanna know what I'm afraid of, huh?" Mendel offered with a laugh, obviously looking to ease the mood just a bit with a newly forced smile and his own slight shift of positions; still leaning against the arm of the chair, head propped up on hand--other holding his notebook--legs crossed.

Marvin slowly nodded.

"Failure. Simple as that. I've got a bit of a hero complex that desperately needs addressing that I've put off for years. I beat myself up over every failure and I can't stop doing it. A failure is a failure, and no matter the size, it means I wasn't trying hard enough." He shook his head, as if correcting himself in that very moment. But then his eyes lit up again, and Marvin could once more detect that false "everything will be alright" facade that was slowly becoming more and more prominent in each face--even strangers--he read on the daily. "Crazy, huh?"

"Yeah," Marvin replied, deep in thought, "crazy."

"You gotta be scared of something, too. It's not so hard to face once you say it aloud."

"Like I said. I'm not scared," Marvin replied coldly.

"Why not? Trina's scared. Jason's scared."

"What?"

"Ah, that's confidential," Mendel interrupted, making a hasty note in his notebook. "A patient is a patient, and their privacy is everything."

"I have a right to know," Marvin said in a sharp growl, now determined. He suddenly raised his eyebrows; there appeared the lightbulb. "Maybe it'll help me figure out what's really wrong with me. Maybe I'll never know otherwise…"

Bingo. Mendel shot upright, bouncing his leg that had now come uncrossed. The sudden panic in his face was indescribably pleasing to Marvin; how quickly his eyes widened immensely entertaining.

"Uh," he stuttered, gripping the notebook with one hand until his knuckles turned a pasty white, like they were covered in coats of flour. "You know I can't…uh…okay. Alright, fine, you win. But this stays between you and I, alright? And you have to promise to open up if I tell you."

Funny promise to ask of the mentally ill, if you ask me, Marvin smiled to himself, but nodded regardless.

"Okay," Mendel replied, sighing. The red flush on his cheeks now solely caught Marvin's attention, but sparked more joy than anything else. He watched with hazy amusement as Mendel resumed his position against the side of the chair, now, however, flipped to the other side. He constantly remained in motion. This time, he still chose to occupy himself with bouncing his leg.

"You know Trina," Mendel began, slowly and almost under his breath, "she's straight from cookie-cutter suburbia. She was raised to be a housewife, and that's all she wanted to be after marrying you. That's all she wants to be now. She's afraid of breaking the same mold that makes her...that confines her to this rigorous, puzzling lifestyle that I as a man can never fully grasp. Individuality is a threat to her upbringing."

Marvin nodded, intently, as if he wasn't ultimately the direct cause of all of her suffering. A scoff indirectly presented itself. He allowed it.

"And, Marvin, Jason is...with all due respect...afraid of becoming like you."

And now the former couldn't help but to laugh, blowing that mere scoff right out of the water. He shrugged his shoulders, rubbing at his lip. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"He's afraid of being 'becoming' a homosexual. Quite literally homophobic."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Well, whatever it is, he's very affected by it. He's under the impression that it's both genetic and learned."

"Jesus…"

"I know, I know," Mendel said, waving about his pencil. "This may all sound ridiculous to you, but I need you to remember that these are their real fears. Real problems. This isn't a game, Marvin; lives are at stake."

Marvin circled two fingers over his eye. "Yuh-huh. Sure they are."

"Maybe it's a game to you," Mendel cautiously added. In an instant, he was scribbling into the book, ferocious with new, swelling ideas. Never before had Marvin seen him so bursting with pride. "Maybe that's your problem! You fear reality, so you hide behind your own little problems until you feel it's gone away."

"That isn't true," Marvin replied, although he'd begun to wonder if Whizzer could possibly be afraid of something as well…

"Maybe in your reality it isn't," Mendel sneered. 

He's just so CONDESCENDING. You know you wanna bash his brains in. Splat.

Marvin, his head so rampant with heaps of contradictory information at once, couldn't even begin decide as to whether Mendel was actually right or not. His only concern was getting out of that office and fast before one of them ended up dead.

And he got his wish--sort of. The phone mounted in the back corner of the room had burst into its incessant scream, demanding attention.

Mendel groaned, flinging himself off of the chair, tossing his notebook onto it, and lazily hobbling towards the unpleasant noise. "I'm sorry, I have to take this or I'll get fired. Caroline, stop calling meeeeeee."

And Marvin couldn't help himself but to listen in as Mendel picked up the dingy receiver--the base, cord, and physical phone itself were all an ugly shade of blue, like the wide oceans of the world only less demure and more pungent. "Ya, this is Dr. Mendel Weisenbachfeld, how may I…? Caroline--dear, can it wait until tomorrow? Are you sure? Alright--" a heavy sigh-- "what's up…"

Maybe God did listen after all. Without hesitation, Marvin lurched forward and snatched up the little notebook within his fingers, a surge of adrenaline rushing through him at the helm of all this information. He had to be quick! To be caught would mean total embarrassment and shame.

The notebook itself fit as a rather skimpy excuse for a professional's. Smaller than copy paper with a hazel brown cover. On its inside cover, Marvin discovered upon rifling through it with shaky hands, bored, hand-drawn flowers adorned it. Measly little sketches that somehow appeared elegant against the stark white backdrop. Some familiar names appeared in the book's actual contents; some of which Marvin had no clue even existed.

There was a Caroline Baker in there, who was presumably the Caroline currently nagging the poor doctor over the phone as Marvin read. He saw Trina's name heading several pages, along with some questionable notes concerning her...physical appearance...coupled with drabbles of her mental state and sob story, blah blah blah. He noticed Jason's name scrawled out heading a page and within some, too. Whizzer's name appeared quite frequently in both of their entries.

Then he found his own unfinished page, a few ripped out before it, dated that very day. So somebody was keeping secrets. Even after several moments of staring, Marvin couldn't determine whether the sight of the notes and the evidence of the removal of more made him nauseous or furious. He read to himself, the shrink's voice more so announcing them to him:

Spacy. Clearly not listening to a word I am saying ever!!!!!!!  
Still trying to hide things from me like I have not studied psychology for years on end  
Clearly afraid of his homosexuality but plays it off with jokes every now and again  
Starved for affection????????????????  
At least he's not giving me his childhood sob story today :)  
Unsatisfactory or no response to Trina and Jas

The last line stood out seeing as though it was unfinished and scribbled over. Confidential, almost forgot.

Marvin finished the final line just in time to hear Mendel sigh, "Okay, you can tell me about it tomorrow. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Bye now," and slam the phone back into the holder. The former tossed the notebook back onto the chair just before Mendel turned around, exhaling in subtle relief at his cleverness.

"Sorry about that," he huffed, breaking into a grin. "Women, right? Gotta love 'em, though."

"Maybe not."

"Hm." Mendel pursed his lips, making another note in the notebook. "You know, platonic attraction is normal and just as important as other attraction, Marvin, having friends isn't a crime."

"Having friends is dangerous. They know too much."

"I mean...sure--" another note-- "interesting enough. What about Whizzer? Aren't boyfriends friends nonetheless? Do you trust him?"

The word boyfriend, too, drew them out of the professional setting for just long enough to render the patient uncomfortable. He unconsciously cracked his knuckles. They popped less like bubbles and more like rocks smashing together, an abrasive sort of sound. "Should I?" he asked, staring at Mendel's shoes. He wasn't wearing socks.

Behind Mendel's eyes rested childlike investment just beginning to wake, muffled as he furrowed his brows. "Why not?" The notebook in his hand sat eager for more information, more snide notes that would send Marvin's subconscious into oblivion. More disgusting self doubt to add to his mental bank.

"Isn't it obvious? He cheats on me at least once a week. I can't keep him pinned down because I'm at work and he's off doing his 'photography'. Is that even a real job, Mendel?"

Mendel clearly ignored the last part of the claim and straightened himself upright. This was probably the only session since their first that Marvin had seen him so invested. "Have you talked to him about it?"

"Sort of. Kinda."

Mendel gestured for him to continue. He really was quite impatient for a psychiatrist who listens for a living…

"You just don't know how things are," Marvin said, suddenly turning to face Mendel head on, "not being able to hold hands in public. Not being able to tell anybody who you truly are. Marrying ditzy housewives and trying to make it all go away."

"You're right. I hopefully won't ever have to endure that, but I can try and empathize a bit?"

"You can try, you just won't get that far. Although I must say I admire that about you, breeder."

The patient met an unamused stare from over the rim of the notebook. Priceless. The act of bothering Mendel to even the slightest extent brought Marvin great, unexplainable joy. Take that, you little creep.

"Unnecessary," he simply replied, making another note. "But, anyways, how does all that justify Whizzer cheating on you?"

A pause.

"Uh--" Marvin scratched the back of his head, which felt oddly damp from sweat-- "why do you think I know?"

"You probably do," Mendel said, tone cold and snappy, "they always do, huh? You have an idea but you don't wanna tell me because you love him too much."

"I never said that."

"You did," Mendel interrupted. He grinned with confidence now, rising out of his seat and soundlessly maneuvering towards the window. He spoke, peering down out of it and onto the street, "You tell me all the time about the mysterious Whizzer Brown. You go on and on about how he wrongs you but never fail to juxtapose it with a positive that you go into great detail of. You never elaborate on the wrongs until now."

"That's not true," Marvin said, although they both knew he had lost.

Mendel met him with a flick of his eyebrows. "You underestimate me."

Quick please change the topic it isn't funny anymore

"Could I ever read your notes on me, Mendel?" Marvin asked quite innocently, cocking his head to the side to subdue a quirk of his that tended to emerge under such stress.

The shrink, lightly pulling on a handful of his curls with a free hand, shook his head, plopping right back down before Marvin as if nothing had happened. Just as Marvin had wanted, although he knew the satisfaction would be short lived as the unanswered questions began to peer into him.

"No," Mendel simply stated. "Professional's eyes only. It might interfere with your thinking negatively, for instance. I'll tell you what you need to know, got it?"

That condescending tone of his had returned. But Marvin, officially exhausted, sought no further conflict. He shied off, shrugging and glancing away in a valiant effort to hide his dismay. He earned his break. Mendel studiously scribbled something on the paper, which, by the lower angle of his pencil, appeared much, much more full. Full of information that Marvin would never have the "privilege" of seeing. The thought of that all prodded at Marvin's stomach, making it lurch and making him more nauseous than he'd ever felt since high school.

It was in that moment that Mendel's attention switched to the clock; five minutes after their allotted session. 

"Time's up," Mendel sighed, his voice exuberant with relief. He flipped the notebook shut, setting it on the table beside him along with the pencil, before absently cracking his knuckles and watching as Marvin hesitated none in making his way towards the door.

After grabbing his coat and throwing it over his sweater, Marvin turned back and muttered, "Is it alright if I pay you next time I see you?"

"Don't worry about it," Mendel said, waving him off, "it's on the house."

"Thanks. See you next week."

"Tonight, actually. Trina's invited me over for dinner again."

Great.

With that, Marvin pursed his lips and opened the door, carefully closing it behind him, and allowed himself a deep, honest breath; the first since he'd arrived a little over an hour ago. He sauntered down the hallway, which was awfully barren for a man of Mendel's caliber, his only intent to steer clear of the forsaken building for just a bit.

The glass door before him offered up a gray, cloud-infested sky, each gray lump pregnant with hoards of raindrops that would rain down upon them in due time. Marvin surveyed the skies for a moment, then lowered his head back to the ground, starting in the direction of the bus stop. 

He reached into his pocket and fished out a pack of cigarettes. Smoking never typically saw a place in Marvin's schedule, but he decided, after that rigorous session, that it would ease his mind just a bit. After all, he had a lot to ponder; now he had even more questions than he did upon arrival.


End file.
